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A Liar’s Autobiography Q&A: Graham Chapman’s not really dead, he’s just being annoying

An interview with Ben Timlett, Bill Jones and Jeff Simpson, co-directors of A Liar’s Autobiography, a new film that animated the recorded memories of Graham Chapman, the selfishly dead member of Monty Python.

It’s time to talk about Graham Chapman, the selfishly dead member of Monty Python who speaks from the grave in A Liar’s Autobiography, a new film that animates his recorded life memories.

Actually, he’s speaking before the grave. Co-directors Ben Timlett, Bill Jones and Jeff Simpson, who sat for a chat during the Toronto International Film Festival, were working with a recording Chapman made before his 1989 death at age 48.

They used 15 animators to illustrate Chapman’s words, some of them very naughty — the words, not the animators. Although you never know with animators.

But what’s with the pipes the three co-directors are all pretending to smoke during this interview?

“Basically, it’s Graham’s motif,” says Jones, the son of Python member Terry Jones. “It’s also what killed him.”

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s try for something completely different:

Q: Which came first: the tape, or the concept?

Jones: The tape. Jeff was searching for a documentary for the BBC he wanted to do. And he went to see David Sherlock, who was Graham's partner for 23 years. They didn’t find anything of great interest in terms of home movies, but as Jeff was leaving, apparently David said, ‘Oh, they’re on the tapes!’ And then they went through the process of finding them and discovering them. That's really where the seed of the first idea came from. He came and saw Ben and me, because we were doing a documentary on the Pythons for their 40th anniversary (in 2009).

Timlett: Also, you can see the drama of Graham in the documentary. Graham is always the dramatic part. He had such a mental life, such a chaotic life.

Q: This may seem like a very silly question, but why 15 different animators for the film? Why not five, or 500?

Timlett: Yeah, why not? To be honest, we did actually set out with a different number in mind. I originally thought the story fell into about six or eight different sections, or parts of his life.

Simpson: Or decades, or something like that. But we started to see the work the animators were pitching at us. Partly it’s because we couldn’t decide, because they're all so great. We started breaking up sections into sections within sections . . . and we ended up with 15.

Q: Why wasn’t Python animator Terry Gilliam one of them?

Timlett: We asked him, and he was too busy.

Jones: He really doesn’t do animation any more. He might do it again, but he’s consciously a director now.

Q: The film is subtitled The Untrue Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman, but it’s not completely false, is it?

Timlett: It's based on his real life.

Simpson: You'd be surprised how much really is true, actually, in terms of the details of what happened in those scenes. But also we’ve all been there in the back of that car with the parents. It’s good to be somewhere else and try to escape.

Jones: And he did have a brother. We did an event for Graham in London recently with Graham’s older brother, and the theme of his little bit was “my annoying little brother.” I think everybody recognized that. At the same time, everybody has great warmth and affection for Graham. Everybody started telling stories about Graham and the fond memories came out.

I think he was probably difficult to work with, though. Everybody refers to the fact that he was late for everything, but they do notice he had this spark and lunacy that ignited something in Python itself.

Q: It’s good that you’re not maudlin about Graham, even though the film does have a couple of dark moments.

Jones: There’s a section in the film which is really very dark and serious. But you don’t want to wallow in that. We finish on a high note because it’s all about celebration. It’s not about the loss. It’s about celebrating his life.

Timlett: The more we talked to David Sherlock, Graham's partner, the more we got the sense that Graham just loved to entertain.

Q: You got almost a “full Monty” for this film. Every Python member except Eric Idle participated (Idle objected to the idea). The three of you must have good diplomatic skills to pull something like this off.

Jones: It was actually quite easy. The Pythons did want to do something for Graham.

Q: Anything except reunite for an official Monty Python project.

Timlett: Yes. This is not a Monty Python film. They’re all just getting on with things they’re interested in now. (Monty Python) was something they did and they’re very proud of it, but that was then.

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